Senators vote down privacy protections

As the Senate prepared to pass the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act on Tuesday, Republicans voted down a spate of amendments that would have strengthened the bill's privacy protections.

Senators led efforts to amend the legislation in order to enhance the individual privacy protections in its provisions. However, with few Republicans and only some Democrats supporting them, the proposals fell short of passing.

One amendment, sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., would have allowed individuals whose privacy rights are violated to submit Freedom of Information Act requests against companies at fault for violating them. The amendment failed, with 32 Democrats and just four Republicans voting in its favor. The Senate Republicans were Utah's Mike Lee, Nevada's Dean Heller, Montana's Steve Daines and Alaska's Dan Sullivan.

Four Republicans did not vote, three of whom are running for president. Those three are Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla. The fourth, Sen. David Vitter, is running for governor of Louisiana.

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